What I Hope For

When discussing issues the media usually refer to the more popular ones—the meat, as they say. And sure, I get why everyone’s always talking about the economy. Things are still rough out there. I was one of the new numbers on the recently released unemployment figures. Then there’s Iraq, and National Security which, of course, is very important—something We can get back to when our Boys (& Girls!) come back from Iraq. However, you shouldn’t forget that even seemingly smaller issues can mean a lot to many of us.

Take Our drug policy. I know, we don’t really have much of one. The number of impoverished crackheads and heroin addicts I see everyday on my way through Lexington Market in the heart of Baltimore hasn’t dwindled much since the beginning of The War on Drugs. (Funny how throwing the word war around has become the standard way to show Us how to solve Our problems.) But Our government has been fighting the same War for a generation now, and other than making a few small dents in the supply and warehousing a lot of people in jails that continue to overcrowd, not much has changed—at least not on the federal level.

At this point I should make it clear why this issue means so much to me—other than the fact that I live three blocks away from Lexington Market. Those of you who might have read My Letter to the Superdelegates, which I wrote when it looked as if things might come down to them, or my flash fiction Bus Stop, or many of the other things I’ve blogged already know that my family has been ravaged by drug addiction. For those of you who don’t know, I lost my mother to AIDS in 1991. Although a loving and courageous woman, a woman who helped new arrivals from Puerto Rico and other Latin American areas settle and adjust to life in Baltimore, she battled with heroin addiction most of her life.

A few years later, I lost my uncle. He was a character, in and out of jail for a lot of his life, hustling when he was out. But sometimes he was the closest thing I had around to a father. He was usually very good to me. Like my mother, he was a heroin addict and ultimately succumbed to AIDS.

My baby brother was barely 17 when my mother died. Although he became a hard worker and a loving father, he suffered greatly after the death of our mother. He also turned to drugs—crack and heroin. On the day after Christmas, 2006, Joe became the latest in my family succumb to AIDS.

The rest of my family has been more fortunate, but I see the ghosts of what my family has been through every day I step out for lunch. And it’s not just the poor. I’ve been privy to the same sad excesses within Our wealthiest families; and other than more and better recovery facilities and less law enforcement scrutiny, their stories are no less tragic than mine.

So when it comes to drug policy, perhaps it’s not as much of a priority as National Security, but certainly should be close behind when you stop to consider how drug abuse continues to destroy Our lives, Our families, Our children, Our schools and Our neighborhoods. What else has to be destroyed before drugs do become a matter of National Security? Bottom line: one of the myriad of reasons I will NEVER vote for them is because that would mean my lunch breaks will never change. The faces will, but the same problems will still haunt me, along with the memories of everything drug addiction has taken away from me.

Maybe a President Obama will not be able to fulfill my dream of a nation where addicts are getting whatever treatment they need, and where we initiate programs to eliminate illegal drug trafficking intelligently instead of with the brute force that has been so ineffective for so long. There’s a lot of work to do and to undo to get there. However, he is the only hope I see of getting Us on that path.

¿Got Hope?

It's been a while since I've written. I guess I've been living in the afterglow since I realized that Ob had clinched the nomination. But considering I've since lost my job, I figure there's no longer any excuse not to write, especially after peeping in on the folks that have been allowed to run ram shod over Washington for the past eight years.

Personally, my instinct tells me this is a lock. I genuinely feel that folks won't allow another four years of our country in the hands of those who nearly ruined it. However, I also felt we had a lock in '00 & '04. Of course, my instincts weren't THAT far off the mark.

Nevertheless, I refuse to sit idly back while the opposition whittles away the best bit of hope we've found so far during this yet young century. I've done more. I've supported Ob with my words and my wallet. I've taught others of the importance of voting–that not voting is actually a vote for the status quo. I don't know about you, but the status quo hasn't done much for me lately.

And those wily republicans will try to whittle the hope away. They derided community organizing as if it were meaningless. It wasn't meaningless to the children I used to deliver supplies to with the Education Based Latino Outreach(EBLO) before their first week of school–children who would have otherwise been unprepared for learning. And after all this talk about experience they make this about personality. Issues came in 2nd to "lLook at me! I'm ready to be your next Whatever."

This time they won't get away with it. They can't. We can't afford it. I'm committed to do more. I hope you are too.

¡Help me pimp Hope!

My Letter to the Superdelegates

Back in February, when the contest for the Democratic candidat for President was still in question, I received an email from Barack Obama's Campain Manager, David Plouffe (or at least his people) asking for a personal statement relating why I chose to support Obama for President. The idea was to compile the best of these and offer them as part of the conversation seeking the support of superdelegates. Granted, by now this has now become mostly irrelevant, but it's an truthful account of how I feel and have felt about the Democratic Party. Anyway, I wrote it in the form of a letter. Let me know what you think...

Esteemed Superdelegates:

I am Fernando Quijano III, born in Jersey City, New Jersey on July 4, 1969. I've been a Democrat for as long as I can remember. My mother taught me from an early age that I needed to be grateful to the party that helped us survive. You see, my mother raised three children on welfare. As one of those children, I learned that the Democratic Party was responsible for creating and protecting the programs that helped to keep families like mine safe from poverty and homelessness. While Republicans tried to sell us "Trickle Down" Economics, the Democrats gave us hope.

My family needed hope. The reason we relied on Social Services was because my mother was a drug addict. She acquired a heroin habit from a man she met when she was only a teenager, and she struggled with it all her life. That struggle made it difficult for her to maintain a job. Government programs made sure that, even during the hardest times, we had a place to live and food to eat. Not only that, but a decent education. I'm also a product of the public school system—one that, for all its flaws, served me well.

Thanks to government programs, I was able to go to colleges. I say colleges because I've been to three over the past twenty years, and I'm still not quite done. I tell folks I'm on a 20-to-Life college plan. Regardless, none of those years would have been possible without help from the federal government. I always imagined the Democrats as the guardians of families like mine who need just a little help to make a good life possible—until recently.

I began to lose faith in politics during that miscarriage of justice posing as an election in 2000. I continued to lose faith as I watched Congress in deadlock while the Executive Branch usurped more and more unchecked power. There have been times when congressmen and senators have reached across the aisle to compromise for the sake of their citizenry, but those times have been few and far between. Just as frustrating was the wheeling and dealing of both parties with lobbyists and corporations, not to mention rampant spending and today's buzzword, earmarks.

It was as if the people I had trusted the most had forgotten all about me. Not me necessarily, because I'm doing well enough now. I mean others like me, others that I know are raising families or growing up under impoverished and sometimes dangerous conditions. I can honestly say that as late as a year ago, my plans were to abandon the Democratic Party altogether and hope that a third party might come along to change things—at least stir them up. After all, Lincoln saved the Union as a third part candidate, didn't he?

And then I learned about Barack Obama. I had heard him speak once at the 2004 Democratic Convention. He was touted as a fresh voice, the future face of the Democratic Party. Little did I realize then that he would be the catalyst that would reignite my hope that government can in fact work for the people. Not just me. After the Iowa Caucuses, what began as a buzz soon became a roar—the roar of an increasingly apathetic electorate regaining its voice. Even friends who had lost hope in politics and politicians long, long ago were discovering possibilities they never imagined.

I admit, if Barack had not decided to run I would have likely voted for Hillary Clinton. I admire Senator Clinton, and I was happy to see that she made some valiant efforts to join Democrats and Republicans in getting things done. However, even if she were electable, I would have always doubted whether she would be willing or capable of cleaning up the stagnation that has all but enveloped Washington. In my heart, I know Barack can and will.

In the end, my family was ravished by drug abuse. My mother died of AIDS in 1991. My uncle, the closest I ever had to a father, died of AIDS a few years later. My little brother, sixteen when my mother died, eventually fell to drug abuse himself. He died of AIDS the day after Christmas in 2006. But thanks to various opportunities supported, if not pioneered by Democrats, I have a sister who made it out okay. She's a successful retail manager. I'm not doing too badly myself. I'm a successful retail manager in my own right, and an aspiring writer hoping to publish one of my novels someday soon. I'm also happily married with two children (I'll take the credit for that!), both of whom attended public schools like their father.

Perhaps most importantly, I understand Barack Obama's message of personal responsibility. I'm truly grateful for the opportunities I've been given, and I've given back by volunteering my time to community programs and organizations. I plan on continuing to give back by teaching once I finally finish that degree. People want to do more for their country when they feel their country is doing for them. That is what has driven the United States of America since it's inception. If you support Obama's candidacy, we can make sure that hope, benevolence and a sense of responsibility for each other continue to move our nation forward rather than allow fear, greed and apathy to continue to hold us back.

Sincerely,
Fernando Quijano III

Lincoln's Legacy

Seven score and eight years ago another seemingly inexperienced politician from Illinois was chosen to represent his party as a catalyst for change. He too had risen through the ranks of the Illinois State legislature, followed by a brief stint in Congress. He too recognized the need to change the way politics operated in Washington. He too was nominated by his party on the basis of his grand oratory and the hope he offered of uniting the nation. Of course, most of you recognize this inexperienced yet eloquent politician as one of our greatest American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

Perhaps it is too soon to draw comparisons between Obama and Lincoln. After all, as of this writing, while it is a given that Barack Obama will capture the Democratic nomination, he is not assured the Presidency. However, the connections between the two are unmistakable, and if Obama does indeed win election to the highest office in the land, I believe it will be the ultimate fulfillment of everything Lincoln fought for.

Before I get pounced on by the history buffs, I do understand that Lincoln did not, at first, set out with the purpose of freeing slaves. If anything, his campaign was a rejection of the status quo—continual compromises with slave owners that threatened to eventually expand slavery nationally—as not just ineffective, but dangerous.

It was the general feeling in the South that every state should be able to choose whether or not to allow slavery, and their hope was that they could expand slavery into territories extending all the way to the Pacific. Meanwhile, pro-slavery forces flooded not-quite-a-state-yet Kansas with slaveholder settlements from the slave state of Missouri and elsewhere.

When the time came to create a constitution, a requirement prior to statehood, slavery proponents imported thugs from outside of Kansas to stuff ballot boxes to assure that Kansas would in fact be admitted as a slave state. The delicate balance between North & South was in jeopardy. Lincoln simply wanted to maintain that balance and hold the Union together.

Of course, things worked out a bit differently than expected. Southern states began seceding almost as soon as election results were announced, and soon after his inauguration, Lincoln and the country were thrust into a war no one really wanted. It was during the Civil War that Lincoln's beliefs evolved. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. While not abolishing slavery outright, it did lay the groundwork for what would ultimately become the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Not bad for someone whose political experience amounted to eight years in the Illinois State Legislature followed by two in Congress.

By this point, I'm sure you can see where I'm going. As a matter of fact, some might dismiss this essay as just another in a line of those I've written to support my candidate. This line of thinking is not entirely off base. However, regardless of whom you support, you can't deny that the parallels between Lincoln and Obama are fascinating. This is not to say that I believe we are a nation on the brink of internal war. Nor am I guaranteeing that Obama, should he ultimately be elected, will be as great a president as Lincoln. I do however believe in Destiny.

It feels a bit like Destiny when the first African American to have a viable shot at the Presidency can virtually tie up his nomination on the anniversary of Lincoln's Inauguration (March 4, 1861 & 1865). It also feels like destiny that 148 years later, another presumably inexperienced, yet eloquent politician rising to prominence after a tenure in the Illinois State Legislature, followed by a short stint in Congress may soon be the one who will finally fulfill Lincoln's Legacy.